Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ to Be Scrutinized in Court in Copyright Case

Beyoncé is on tour, Drake is setting streaming records and Taylor Swift has split up with her boyfriend. But next week, the most gripping news for the music industry may come out of a federal courtroom in Los Angeles.

There, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin will be defending themselves against a lawsuit claiming that parts of “Stairway to Heaven” — the band’s signature hit and a pillar of rock radio since the song’s release in 1971 — were copied from “Taurus,” an instrumental tune by the lesser-known group Spirit.

The trial, set to start on June 14 with Mr. Page and Mr. Plant expected to be in attendance, may prove fascinating legal theater for fans. But it will also be closely watched by a music business that is grappling with a series of recent copyright decisions.

Last year, a federal jury found that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams had copied Marvin Gaye in Mr. Thicke’s 2013 hit song “Blurred Lines,” and ordered Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams to pay $7.4 million (later reduced to $5.3 million). Industry commentators said the decision penalized elements of songs long thought of as being fair game, like the generic “feel” of a recording, and warned of a chilling effect on creativity.

That case and others like it, lawyers and music executives say, have raised new questions about songwriting and copyright — issues long a part of the background of litigation in the industry. They have also led to increased scrutiny whenever a song’s credits are challenged or changed, as they were a year ago when co-writers were quietly added to Mark Ronson’s retro hit “Uptown Funk.”

“It used to be that melody and lyrics were the basis of all infringement claims, but now that’s fuzzier,” said Jay Rosenthal, a music industry lawyer and the former general counsel of the National Music Publishers’ Association. “‘Blurred Lines’ has opened the door and made rhythm and beats and ‘feel’ perhaps proprietary, where before it was not the case.”

The Led Zeppelin case was filed two years ago by a trustee representing the songs of Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, one of Spirit’s main songwriters, who died in 1997. But the dispute has echoes of “Blurred Lines” and is being watched as a test of the limits of copyright.

The case focuses on the famous opening of “Stairway to Heaven,” in which an acoustic guitar plays arpeggiated chords in a descending pattern. That part, the suit contends, copied Spirit’s “Taurus,” released in 1968. In the suit’s complaint, Francis Malofiy, the lead lawyer representing the plaintiff, said that Led Zeppelin’s members heard Spirit’s song when the bands crossed paths on the road early in their careers.

The suit, filed on behalf of Michael Skidmore, the trustee, accused Led Zeppelin of copyright infringement and the novel claim (duly struck down by the judge) of “falsification of rock ’n’ roll history.” Mr. Malofiy has said that he is seeking as much as $40 million in damages.

Mr. Wolfe never pursued a lawsuit during his lifetime. But Mr. Skidmore, a customs consultant and former music journalist who has controlled Mr. Wolfe’s trust since 2009, filed the case in 2014, shortly after a Supreme Court ruling that said that copyright infringement cases could proceed even after long delays.

Mr. Page and Mr. Plant deny ever having heard “Taurus” before the case came to light and say that “Stairway to Heaven” was written independently. Yet over the years, the band has settled numerous challenges of plagiarism by adding other songwriters’ credits to its albums. In 2012, for example, the band settled a suit by Jake Holmes over “Dazed and Confused,” and subsequent releases of the song on Led Zeppelin’s albums list it as being written by Mr. Page and “inspired by Jake Holmes.”

Whatever happens with the Led Zeppelin trial, the industry is still trying to understand the effects of the “Blurred Lines” case, which is under appeal.

Matt Pincus, the chief executive of Songs Music Publishing, an independent publisher that works with current pop and hip-hop acts like the Weeknd and Desiigner, said his company was seeing far more claims of infringement now — most made privately, outside of court — than ever before. But the reasons were not clear, he said.

“It could be opportunism, because lawyers are smelling blood,” Mr. Pincus said. “But it could also be because we have moved to a real collaboration economy now, where pop records have multiple collaborators in a way that they didn’t five or six years ago.” Those collaborators may dispute credits or royalties after the fact.

Richard S. Busch, the lawyer who represented the Gaye family in the “Blurred Lines” case, said that each copyright case succeeded or failed on its own merits, and he disputed the idea that his case has had any negative impact on the music industry.

“The fact that maybe some people are being caught now that wouldn’t be, or are being pursued now that wouldn’t be, is not a bad thing,” Mr. Busch said. “But the idea that ‘Blurred Lines’ has opened up the floodgates is absurd, and I would suspect that those who are claiming this may have an agenda to take that position.”

Donald S. Passman, a top music lawyer who wrote the book “All You Need to Know About the Music Business,” called the “Blurred Lines” case “aberrational” and suggested that its long-term impact may be minimal.

“To me, it’s like you’re driving along the highway at 65 miles an hour at night,” Mr. Passman said. “You see an accident, slow down, and 15 minutes later, you’re back at full speed. It’s more like that.”

The judge in the Led Zeppelin case, R. Gary Klausner of United States District Court, has ruled that the band’s past problems with copyright cannot be presented at trial, and Mr. Malofiy, the plaintiff’s lawyer, may face other challenges as well.

Since the case focuses on songwriting, rather than on the recording of the song, the jury must base its decision on the written version of “Taurus” that was used to register its copyright. As in the “Blurred Lines” trial, the jury may hear versions of the two songs as presented by music experts retained by both sides.

In a sideshow to the trial itself, the lawyers have been battling in public and through filings with the court. In the most recent volley, Mr. Malofiy accused Mr. Page and Mr. Plant of “refusing to appear” at the trial. But in a filing, Led Zeppelin’s lawyers, Peter J. Anderson and Helene Freeman, called Mr. Malofiy’s claims “a P.R. stunt in the hope of tainting the jury pool,” and said that Mr. Page and Mr. Plant would be present.

Mr. Anderson and Ms. Freeman declined to comment. But in a brief interview, Mr. Malofiy called their most recent filing “100 percent bluster.”

Led Zeppelin also argues that the commonalities between the songs are generic elements in musical composition that go back decades, and the core of the pieces in question are little more than a basic chord progression.

But in denying the band’s request for summary judgment, Judge Klausner found that there was enough similarity to warrant a test at trial, in a phrase that could almost be an excerpt from a musicology textbook: “While it is true that a descending chromatic four-chord progression is a common convention that abounds in the music industry, the similarities here transcend the core structure.”

A jury will decide just how similar they are.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Led Zeppelin Members Set to Defend ‘Stairway’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe